Nicholas Hoover Wilson is associate professor of sociology at Stony Brook University. He is the author of Modernity’s Corruption: Empire and Morality in the Making of British India (Columbia, 2023).Damon Mayrl is associate professor of sociology at Colby College. He is the author of Secular Conversions: Political Institutions and Religious Education in the United States and Australia, 1800–2000 (2016).

This book is a much-needed guide for how sociologists can think about and actually use comparison. Each chapter offers a novel and innovative contribution on the question of how comparison allows scholars to establish causality and construct theory.

• AcknowledgmentsComparison After Positivism, by Damon Mayrl and Nicholas Hoover WilsonPart I. Why Compare?1. The Qualitative-Quantitative Divide in Comparative Historical Analysis, by Stefan Bargheer2. Comparison in Action: Immersion and Recursion as Heuristics in Historical Sociology, by Damon Mayrl3. The Meaningfulness of Comparison: A Macro-Phenomenological Exploration, by Xiaohong Xu4. From Causality to Constitution: Why Good Historical Comparisons Are the Same as Good Ethnographic Case Studies, Deep Down, by Josh PacewiczPart II. What to Compare5. Process Theories and Comparative Sociology: Some Problems and a Solution, by Natalie B. Aviles6. Designing Narratives and Recovering Legal Narrativity: An Exploratory Essay, by Laura R. Ford7. Comparison, Context, and the Power of Modern Corruption, by Nicholas Hoover WilsonPart III. How to Compare8. Comparative Sociology, Critical Realism, and Reflexivity, by George Steinmetz9. Historicizing Comparisons in Historical Sociology, by Jonah Stuart Brundage10. How Not to Lie with Comparative Historical Sociology: A Realist Balance Sheet, by Simeon J. Newman11. Historical Causation and Temporally Sensitive Comparisons, by Yang Zhang12. The Dialectical Comparative Methodology, by Rebecca Jean Emigh, Dylan Riley, and Patricia AhmedAfterword, by Philip GorskiContributorsIndex

Nicholas Hoover Wilson is associate professor of sociology at Stony Brook University. He is the author of Modernity’s Corruption: Empire and Morality in the Making of British India (Columbia, 2023).Damon Mayrl is associate professor of sociology at Colby College. He is the author of Secular Conversions: Political Institutions and Religious Education in the United States and Australia, 1800–2000 (2016).

This book is a much-needed guide for how sociologists can think about and actually use comparison. Each chapter offers a novel and innovative contribution on the question of how comparison allows scholars to establish causality and construct theory.

• AcknowledgmentsComparison After Positivism, by Damon Mayrl and Nicholas Hoover WilsonPart I. Why Compare?1. The Qualitative-Quantitative Divide in Comparative Historical Analysis, by Stefan Bargheer2. Comparison in Action: Immersion and Recursion as Heuristics in Historical Sociology, by Damon Mayrl3. The Meaningfulness of Comparison: A Macro-Phenomenological Exploration, by Xiaohong Xu4. From Causality to Constitution: Why Good Historical Comparisons Are the Same as Good Ethnographic Case Studies, Deep Down, by Josh PacewiczPart II. What to Compare5. Process Theories and Comparative Sociology: Some Problems and a Solution, by Natalie B. Aviles6. Designing Narratives and Recovering Legal Narrativity: An Exploratory Essay, by Laura R. Ford7. Comparison, Context, and the Power of Modern Corruption, by Nicholas Hoover WilsonPart III. How to Compare8. Comparative Sociology, Critical Realism, and Reflexivity, by George Steinmetz9. Historicizing Comparisons in Historical Sociology, by Jonah Stuart Brundage10. How Not to Lie with Comparative Historical Sociology: A Realist Balance Sheet, by Simeon J. Newman11. Historical Causation and Temporally Sensitive Comparisons, by Yang Zhang12. The Dialectical Comparative Methodology, by Rebecca Jean Emigh, Dylan Riley, and Patricia AhmedAfterword, by Philip GorskiContributorsIndex